JetBlue Reigns Supreme in Airline Consumer Satisfaction Index

Move over, Southwest Airlines — your 20-year reign at the top of the American Customer Satisfaction Index is over. So who’s the new champ? None other than JetBlue.

This year marks the first that JetBlue has had enough market share to be listed among the major US carriers in the ACSI survey, which ranks restaurants, hotels, airlines and consumer shipping based on customer satisfaction.

And JetBlue’s debut made quite a splash: the airline scored 81 points, besting longtime champ Southwest and tying its all-time high score seen last year. The Dallas-based airline slipped four points to 77, something that could be the result of its merger with AirTran.

“Change can be disrupting and dissatisfying,” said ACSI managing director David Van Amburg. “If, for instance, one airline was your favorite airline and it’s now being absorbed by another whose website is different and [whose] way of doing things is different, that can create some dissatisfaction.”

Delta Airlines knows this all too well. After its merger with Northwest, it got a nasty score of 56 in last year’s ACSI rankings. But it bounced back this year with a score of 65, putting it ahead of United and American. They scored 62 and 64, respectively.